LOUISVILLE, Ky. – At 12:56 a.m. Friday, just minutes after Penn State pulled off a miraculous reverse sweep over No. 2 overall seed Nebraska in the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament, head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley was nowhere to be found. Three of their star players, Jess Mruzik, Caroline Jurevicius and Gillian Grimes, took to the press conference podium with big grins on their faces. Mruzik, a team captain, said Schumacher-Cawley was right behind them and would join them shortly.

For five minutes everyone waited, peering at the back door.

Then 44-year-old Schumacher-Cawley strolled into the room. She had thrown on a brand new black national championship finalist sweater with a “PSU!” Sticker stuck to the right side of her chest. She wore a black cloth cap that covered her head from neck to forehead. It fits exactly. She touched her hat as she sat down.

She mumbled to her players that she needed to change her hat before heading to the press conference. Her players held her gaze. They’ve always been in sync, this group, but the unity has gotten stronger this season.

“I’m tired,” explained Schumacher-Cawley. “I don’t know about you.”

From 9:42 p.m. to 12:40 a.m. ET, well past her bedtime, Schumacher-Cawley stood on the court as her team saved two match points and staged one of the greatest comebacks in volleyball history.

For the next 20 minutes from the podium, Schumacher-Cawley’s eyes lit up and she sat straighter each time someone asked her about her players. When asked about herself, she deflected and Mruzik interrupted her with a sentence: “I know Katie doesn’t like to talk about herself…”

Schumacher-Cawley has revealed few details about this surreal season: In September, at the start of her third season as head coach at Penn State, she was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer after multiple hospital visits and tests. She shared her diagnosis on Instagram in October and asked that attention continue to be focused on her team and the “incredible things they do.” Schumacher-Cawley, who has three teenage and teenage daughters, began treatment immediately.

She could have taken the year off. God knows her team would have understood. But that thought didn’t even cross her mind.

“I feel most normal around this team and the staff,” Schumacher-Cawley said the day before the national semifinals. “It’s much easier for me to be with them at training and in the gym.”

Schumacher-Cawley and the Nittany Lions program have a long history. As a player, she helped Penn State win a national championship in 1999 and had more than 1,300 kills in her career. In 2022, Schumacher-Cawley was promoted to head coach after four years as assistant coach. She took over a program that won seven national championships, including a four-peat, from 2007 to 2010 under Russ Rose, her former coach. In her first two years, she led the Nittany Lions to the regional semifinals.

But Penn State hasn’t been to the championship game since winning the title in 2014. Schumacher-Cawley always had big plans for the program and her players.

Despite the cancer diagnosis and even during her chemotherapy, she showed up to the gym every day wearing her black cap. She never missed a training session.

“I’m going to be healthy and get through this, and that’s just part of my journey and my life right now,” Schumacher-Cawley said.

Her courage made her team stronger. Their fight in court gave them a reason to fight there. If they took care of matters on the field, she could sleep more soundly, they thought, and she could concentrate on getting better. At the beginning of the season the team met for a meeting. It has distilled its core values. The first – and the most important one that led the team throughout the season – Bigger than us.

“Sometimes we get caught up in the moment – we’ve been playing this sport almost our whole lives, so it can seem like the most important thing in life,” Mruzik said. “But the way Coach is able to be the same every day no matter what’s going on really puts us in perspective because it’s really just a sport. Of course we want to win and that’s what we do.” But in the end it’s just a game and we don’t have to take it too seriously because sometimes life outside of sport can be more challenging than what you do in volleyball.”

The diagnosis has led Schumacher-Cawley to be more conscious of her time. She enforced a ban on telephone calls for her team at every group meal. She wants her players to be present with one another. And in return, she gets to listen to them ask their silly “What would you do if…” questions and the cacophony that ensues during their countless mafia games.

So in big moments, the Nittany Lions played freely and fearlessly. They only lost two games in the regular season, against Pitt and Wisconsin. In the regular season finale, they defeated Nebraska in four sets. Mruzik, an outside attacker, put up incredible numbers, her accuracy and angles surpassing some of the best defensive players in the country. She was named an AVCA first-team All-American. Setter Izzy Starck recorded 17 double-doubles this season and won AVCA Freshman of the Year honors, a first for a Penn State setter. Senior middle blocker Taylor Trammell rounded out the team by being one of the most efficient attackers in the country, hitting .441.

Through it all, Schumacher-Cawley stood on the sideline, his hands behind his back, a quiet force of confidence. Nobody knew whether she was in pain.

“It’s important to recognize that this is the same Katie from last year and the year before, cancer or not,” Trammell said. “She still comes to this gym every day with the same fire and intensity.”

How is that possible?

Perspective.

Every time Schumacher-Cawley enters the hospital for treatment, she passes a children’s hospital across the street.

“People talk about inspiration and things like that. I’m telling you – there are babies and younger children who are really sick, that’s my perspective,” she said.

With that perspective, she flew to the national semifinals in Louisville with her husband, Mike Cawley, three children and her team. She entered Thursday night after beating Creighton in the regional final, which would ultimately mark Penn State’s second consecutive five-setter in the NCAA Tournament. She stood like a brick on the sidelines, screaming “Go Izzy” when Starck needed a boost and whispering instructions in Mruzik’s ear during timeouts.

When the Nittany Lions lost 2-0 to Nebraska and all seemed lost, she huddled with her team and told the players how proud she was of them. She told them to settle down and be more confident.

In the third set the team seemed motivated. If this were to be their last set of the season, the players would give their best – for Schumacher-Cawley. Her serving and passing improved. Defensively, they started winning more balls. They won the third set. In the fourth period, the Nittany Lions looked more fearless than ever with two match points. Mruzik managed two kills, Grimes served an ace and Camryn Hannah hit two kills to complete an incredible comeback and send the match into the fifth set.

With 12:10 left in the final set, Schumacher-Cawley called a timeout and invited her players to a huddle. They formed a circle around her. Once they broke through the scrum, the Nittany Lions appeared unstoppable. Her energy was palpable.

Minutes later, Hannah secured the victory with a kill. Schumacher-Cawley grinned from the sidelines. Her team ran onto the field and fell into a dog poop. Schumacher-Cawley stood next to it, took a deep breath and took it all in.

On Sunday, Schumacher-Cawley will play a historic game alongside Louisville’s Dani Busboom Kelly. Regardless of the outcome, this will be the first time a female head coach has become an NCAA national champion.

“I can’t imagine going through a season of chemotherapy and what that must have been like,” Busboom Kelly said. “She hasn’t missed a practice all year, and that makes it even more incredible to me that she was able to do that.”

After the win over Nebraska, Schumacher-Cawley put on a new top and changed her hat. She felt hot under her hat during the game, but she doesn’t want to appear in public without a hat. (Although her players say she looks pretty.) After arriving a few minutes late to the press conference, she remained focused on her players.

But on volleyball’s biggest stage, Mruzik made sure everyone knew Schumacher-Cawley was the source of her inspiration.

“We obviously want to do this for her because she’s been so great all season,” Mruzik said. “So I think this tough five-set win in particular helped put another building block in the structure we want to build this season.”

Schumacher-Cawley will return home after the final game of the season. Her surgery is scheduled for the first week of January.

“I’ve said this every day, but I’m proud of their fight and the way they stick together,” Schumacher-Cawley said. “They find a way to win.”

She stood up and stepped away from the podium. She still had one more game to coach.